Abiding...

in the valley. It's new for me. I've talked a lot over the past few months about the pasture that I feel like God has been leading me through. It's been lush and green, and it represents such refreshing growth in my walk with Him. I knew that would be preparing me for other times of not-so-fun growth, and I was right. Being a "feeler" or a person of emotional intensity (does that make it sound cooler?), my highs are high and my lows are low. Very rarely am I hanging out consistently in the middle- apart from the transitions. If you're a math/trigonometry/algebra-type person, think of a sine wave as opposed to just the ol' x-axis. I'm a sine...wave.

So following this spurt of spiritual growth, I hit one of my usual downs. Now for me, this is a time of feeling kinda blah and lots of thought invested in why this cloud of blah settled over my heart. Usually I can pinpoint a number of possible causes without being able to fix or remove any of them. I sometimes get beat (by the Enemy) with the question of "Shouldn't God be enough that you never feel sad? If you really believed in the victory that salvation brings you, shouldn't that bring true joy to your heart despite anything that's going on right now?" I don't necessarily know the answer to those questions, but I know how I feel, and I know what I know about God and His Truth. I know that people in the Bible were legitimately sad. Read about Job. Read about Jesus! How we feel and who God is can both exist in our hearts if we have them in the right perspective.

I've talked to quite a few fellow believers about this concept over the past few days, and I've been really encouraged by their answers. Much of the responses involved what I just typed in the last paragraph. And honestly, I'm grateful for the opportunity to travel through one of these valleys with a better perspective. My normal approach is to check out for a few days (not get into the Word, slack off in prayer, and overall just retreat into introspection) until I come to a breaking point. But I will gladly leave behind this empty regimen that basically wastes a lot of Kingdom time and personal energy. So I'm trying to use this time to be still, to watch, to keep trusting. I'm still honest in prayer. I mean, God already knows how we feel anyway, right? So I trust in His power to change my heart. He renews my mind (Rom 12:2), and He is greater than our hearts (1 John 3:20). So I have hope. And hopefully I'm getting better at abiding.